The city of Rockford, IL 61104 is governed by an elected mayor and nine-member City Council. Each member of the City Council represents one of the nine wards within the city. The current Mayor is Tom McNamara who was first elected in 2017. The city has a number of local political candidates representing various parties that put forward their ideas for how to best move the city forward. Some important issues discussed during election season include economic development, public safety, infrastructure investment and community engagement. With an ever-growing population, Rockford also faces challenges such as poverty, unemployment, crime rates and educational attainment. In order to continue to foster growth and prosperity in the city, local leaders need to prioritize addressing these challenges through robust policies and initiatives for making life better for its citizens.
The political climate in Zip 61104 (Rockford, IL) is leaning liberal.
Winnebago County, IL is leaning liberal. In Winnebago County, IL 50.0% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 47.5% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.5% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Winnebago county remained narrowly Democratic, 50.0% to 47.5%.
Winnebago county voted Democratic in the four most recent Presidential elections, after 2000 and 2004 went Republican.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Zip 61104 (Rockford, IL) is leaning liberal.
Rockford, Illinois is leaning liberal.
Winnebago County, Illinois is leaning liberal.
Rockford Metro Area is leaning conservative.
Illinois is moderately liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Rockford, Illinois: r r D d d d
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in zip 61104 (Rockford)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 96 contributions totaling $9,473 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $99 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 14 contributions totaling $2,635 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $188 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)